​US leaders reject democracy, once again

Caleb Maupin is a radical journalist and political analyst who lives in New York City. Originally from Ohio, he studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College. In addition to his journalism, analysis, and commentary, he has engaged in political activism. He is a youth organizer for the International Action Center and was involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement from its planning stages in August 2011. He has worked against police brutality, mass incarceration, and imperialist war. He works to promote revolutionary ideology, and to support all who fight against the global system of monopoly capitalist imperialism.

Back in 2003, George W. Bush justified his invasion of Iraq by
saying he was “bringing freedom” to Iraq and
“removing a dictator.” In 2011, Barack Obama justified
sending cruise missiles to Libya by calling Gaddafi a
“tyrant.” The US currently gives material support to
insurgent groups in Syria, allegedly because Assad is a
"dictator."

Children in the United States, from a very young age, are
indoctrinated to believe that the US fights for
“freedom” around the world, and enemies of the US are
simply those who reject it. The nauseating rhetoric of the US
being “the greatest country in the world” is accompanied
by a historical mythology that in each military conflict, from
the conquest of the Philippines in 1899 to the Cold War, the US
government was motivated merely by a desire to “defend” and
“spread freedom” and to fight against
“dictators" and "oppressors."

This narrative is simply false. An examination of the world
situation shows that the rejection of the popular will of Crimea
is nothing new. In numerous instances, the US government has
considered popular leaders chosen by democratic elections to be
illegitimate and worked to undermine them, and in many other
instances, the US backed unpopular and oppressive autocrats.

The 2009 coup in Honduras

In 2009, the Honduran military removed President Manuel Zelaya,
who had won in a democratic election. After overthrowing the
elected government, Roberto Michilletti, the general who led this
violent coup was declared “Congressman for Life.” Since
the coup, there has been a campaign of fascist violence in
Honduras. Over 30 journalists have been assassinated. Human
Rights Watch reports that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender
activists are also being exterminated, with 70 of them already
targeted and killed.

The coup has resulted in economic horror. The World Bank reports
that 59 percent of the country now lives in poverty, with the
level of extreme poverty growing each day. Fifty-one percent of
the population is unemployed. Honduras now also has the highest
murder rate in the entire world.

The US did not send in cruise missiles to “defend
democracy” when Zelaya was overthrown. The response was the
opposite.

Zeleya, the democratically-elected president, had dared to align
with Bolivia and Venezuela. He had rejected the rule of Wall
Street and led Honduras into the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin
America (ALBA). When he was violently overthrown, the US embraced
the military leaders who did so and has continued to align with
them.

What happened in Honduras in 2009 was similar to what the US did
in 1973 in Chile. Salvador Allende, a democratically-elected
socialist, was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup. The fascist
regime of Augusto Pinochet was installed, and at least 20,000
left-wing activists were rounded up and summarily executed. All
across Latin America, the CIA has carried out coups, overturned
governments and installed pro-Wall Street autocrats.

The destabilization of Belarus

Aleksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, is highly
popular. In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union,
Lukashenko refused to sell off Belarus mines, forests, and
factories. Eighty percent of Belarus' economy remains under
public ownership. The CIA World Factbook confirms that while
unemployment around the world has skyrocketed in recent decades,
in Belarus less than 2 percent of the population is unemployed.
Lukashenko's popularity is based on economic populism, standing
up for the people, and refusing to allow the plunder of the
country.

When Lukashenko was first elected in 1995, he received only a
plurality of 45.1 percent of the vote. After his first term in
office, when he ran for reelection in 2001, he was voted back
into office with 77 percent. Running for his third term in 2006,
he received 82 percent of the vote. In the most recent election
in 2010, Lukashenko won 79 percent of the vote. Each presidential
election in Belarus is surrounded by violence and rioting staged
by the anti-government minority in Belarus that is funded by the
Western economic powers, and cheered by Western media. The
National Endowment for Democracy has poured hundreds of thousands
of dollars into anti-government groups in Belarus. NGOs have been
established. Following the 2010 presidential election, government
buildings had their windows smashed. Belarus faces economic
sanctions from the European Union.

While Lukashenko is highly popular with the people of Belarus,
and has been reelected with large majorities, the US has worked
very hard to destabilize Belarus and overthrow him. The fact that
Lukashenko is supported by an overwhelming majority of the
population has not halted the "defenders of democracy"
in Washington from trying to remove him, and calling Belarus
"an outpost of tyranny."

Labeling Chavez and Maduro ‘dictators’

Another example of complete US disregard for democracy has been
the treatment given to the late president of Venezuela, Hugo
Chavez. Chavez was elected multiple times. Each of these
elections was observed by the United Nations, the Carter Center,
and the Organization of American States, who all certified their
results as legitimate. Maduro, Chavez’s successor, has also been
elected democratically, with over 170 different foreign observers
welcomed to Venezuela to oversee the voting process.

In Venezuela, opposition parties not only openly operate, but
control most of the TV networks and media. Anti-Chavez and
Anti-Maduro rhetoric is constantly spewed from Venezuela's
television and radio stations. Rallies against the government by
right-wing groups are everyday occurrences. Venezuela does not
have the death penalty, let alone torture, rendition or secret
prisons.

Yet somehow, US officials and Western media insist that Chavez
was a brutal dictator. John Kerry now speaks of sanctions against
Venezuela. No matter how much the Bolivarian forces in Venezuela
accommodate the right-wing, US-funded opposition, the Western
media and officials in Washington insist on calling them
"dictators."

The Venezuelan public has voted again and again in favor of the
popular reforms that began with Chavez, and continue now with
Maduro. The Venezuelan public supports the economic empowerment
of working people, the changing of capitalist property relations,
and the expansion of popular democracy, and has voted to allow
the process to continue.

The US government and its allies are unconcerned about the
popularity of the Bolivarian movement, or even its continued
tolerance of the increasingly violent minority who oppose it. The
US openly works to destabilize and overthrow the popular
Venezuelan government, and yet somehow declares these efforts to
be "democratic."

Wall Street’s favorite autocrats

While many democratically-elected governments are subverted and
threatened by the United States, there are many open unapologetic
dictatorships that receive US support. All the tyrants, mass
murderers and oppressive dictators who have received US funding
and support have received it because they are obedient servants
for Wall Street. With their slaughter, they have kept profits
flowing to the New York Stock Exchange, and they have murdered
those who would direct them otherwise by forming labor unions,
establishing measures of economic protection, or demanding basic
democratic rights.

Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. It conducts public
beheading and floggings and has absolutely no notion of
“civil rights” or “freedom.” Saudi people have
no ability to vote against this regime, and there are no
elections of any kind taking place in Saudi Arabia. Yet the US
sends billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia each year. The
blatantly autocratic kingdom is the primary ally of the United
States in the Middle East, after Israel.

In South Korea, it is a crime to make certain political
statements. Park Jeong-Geun was detained and jailed for tweeting.
His tweets were not even meant as political statements but as
sarcastic jokes, but he was still locked up. The Unified
Progressive Party, the primary opposition party in South Korea,
has been shut down, with its leaders sentenced to lengthy prison
terms. Yet 28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea to
protect this regime, and it also receives millions of dollars in
US aid and support.

The Gulf emirate of Qatar is so autocratic and repressive that it
does not just ban opposition parties, but all political parties.
People there have none of the "human rights" or
"freedom of speech" the US claims to champion. In one
example of the autocratic nature of Qatar, a poet named Muhammad
Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami was sentenced to life in prison for
“insulting” a leader of the country. In October, his
sentence was reduced from life to 15 years. Despite no notion of
democracy existing, and life sentences being handed down for
political expression, the US still supplies Qatar with millions
of dollars each year.

The list of dictators and oppressors who have been funded, armed
and supported by the United States is very long. It includes
figures like the Shah of Iran, Rios Montt of Guatemala and other
monsters who have tortured, murdered and killed.

Francisco Franco, the military dictator of Spain from 1939 to
1975, rode into power with the aid of Adolf Hitler and Benito
Mussolini, and publicly executed numerous people by means of
public strangulation. After World War II, he was embraced by the
US, who signed the "Pact of Madrid," promising absolute support
to the fascist regime. US military facilities were set up in
Spain and US President Richard Nixon toasted Franco, describing
him as a “loyal friend and ally of the United States."

Though anti-Communist rhetoric from US leaders often includes
references to "killing fields," the US even briefly
supported Pol Pot in Cambodia, thinking him to be a helpful ally
against the Soviet Union and Vietnam.

These historical facts are ignored by the average foreign policy
analyst on CNN, Fox or MSNBC, but many people around the world
have not forgotten them. Each time Obama, Clinton or Kerry begin
to lecture us about the "human rights violations" of
some leader around the world, millions of eyes roll in disgust.
The US has worked with countless tyrants, oppressors and
violators of human rights, and often has made no effort to
conceal it.

A global struggle for economic independence

All across the world, countries are throwing off the rule of Wall
Street, the London Stock Exchange, the IMF and other institutions
of Western imperialist economic power. These countries are not
political clones. Some are religious, some are secular, some are
capitalist, some are socialist, some are led by Marxist-Leninist
parties, others by committed anti-Communists; but all are united
in a desire for economic independence.

At this moment, the countries that the US seeks to overthrow and
destabilize are all part of an emerging global alliance. They
have all declared some measure of economic independence. They
have sought to reconstruct the economy to serve themselves, not
billionaires in the US and Europe. US leaders, despite their
rhetoric, do not care if there is massive public support for such
regimes. Any country that refuses to bow before the economic
hegemony of the West, whether it is China, Russia, People's
Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe or Belarus, is targeted with subversion and
attack.

In the New World Order declared by George H.W. Bush in the
aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, no country is allowed to
develop independently. The world economy is to be controlled by
the billionaires on Wall Street and the London Stock Exchange,
and all who demand independence are to be threatened, sanctioned,
bombed and destroyed. The bombing of Libya, the invasion of Iraq,
the attack on Serbia, all served to beat down leaders and regimes
that refused to accept economic domination by the United States.

It is clear, however, that the will of the people, in every
corner of the globe, is for independence and freedom. The global
setup of economic domination by Western powers is highly
unpopular. No matter how many Cruise missiles are fired,
sanctions are imposed, or terrorist groups are armed, the people
continue to demand economic independence and national liberation.
Leaders like Patrice Lamumba, Mao Zedong, Hugo Chavez, Alexander
Lukashenko, Hassan Nasrallah, and Evo Morales continue to emerge,
and people continue to rally around them. The prosperity, freedom
and happiness offered by those promoting western economic
"development" has simply not materialized, and globally,
the human race is rejecting the path offered by Wall Street and
London.

When Obama talked of a direct military attack on Syria, world
public opinion pushed him back. Now a new poll from Pew Research
shows that the overwhelming majority of people, even within the
United States itself, say "we should not get involved” in
Ukraine.

The Wall Street-run government of the United States is hostile to
the sentiments expressed in popular democratic elections. It’s
happy to embrace autocrats and tyrants, because humanity has
rejected what they have put forward. Only as the bankers are
driven back, and the oppressed countries of the world break free,
we will begin to see a greater level of democracy unfold.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.